Arts & Letters Creative Co. has hired Temma Shoaf as director of production. In this role, Shoaf will lead the production department and be on the agency’s leadership team.
Shoaf joins Arts & Letters from Wieden + Kennedy NY where she was most recently executive producer on McDonald’s. Over the years she also served as EP for Bud Light, ESPN, and Target brands. Shoaf has experience across all production platforms from simple social posts to experiential activations, to last minute Super Bowl spots.
Charles Hodges, founder and ECD of Arts & Letters Creative Co., said of Shoaf, “Her award-winning work experience is matched only by her amazing personality, attitude and extraordinary ability to support everyone in her orbit.”
“The opportunity to join Arts & Letters reunites me with some of my favorite people in all of advertising, and provides a great outlet for the experience I’ve gained over the years running production for several major brands,” said Shoaf. “I am looking forward to this next chapter in my advertising career with lots of excitement and enthusiasm.”
Shoaf will join Arts & Letters in late June.
Arts & Letters Creative Co. is a Richmond, Va.-based independent shop working in advertising and technology with clients such as Google, ESPN and NBC News.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More